The individual who will receive my support is the candidate that addresses the abuse of $3,000,000 of funds by University of California Berkeley. UC Berkeley’s recent elimination of popular sports programs highlighted endemic problems in the university’s management. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s eight-year fiscal track record is dismal indeed. He would like to blame the politicians in Sacramento, since they stopped giving him every dollar he has asked for, and the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means.

A competent chancellor would have been on top of identifying inefficiencies in the system and then crafting a plan to fix them. Compentent oversight by the Board of Regents and the legislature would have required him to provide data on problems and on what steps he was taking to solve them. Instead, every year Birgeneau would request a budget increase, the regents would agree to it, and the legislature would provide. The hard questions were avoided by all concerned, and the problems just piled up….until there was no money left.

It’s not that Birgeneau was unaware that there were, in fact, waste and inefficiencies in the system. Faculty and staff have raised issues with senior management, but when they failed to see relevant action taken, they stopped. Finally, Birgeneau engaged some expensive ($3 million) consultants, Bain & Company, to tell him what he should have been able to find out from the bright, engaged people in his own organization.

From time to time, a whistleblower would bring some glaring problem to light, but the chancellor’s response was to dig in and defend rather than listen and act. Since UC has been exempted from most whistleblower lawsuits, there are ultimately no negative consequences for maintaining inefficiencies.

In short, there is plenty of blame to go around. But you never want a serious crisis to go to waste. An opportunity now exists for the UC president, Board of Regents, and California legislators to jolt UC Berkeley back to life, applying some simple check-and-balance management principles. Increasing the budget is not enough; transforming senior management is necessary. The faculty, students, staff, academic senate, Cal. alumni, and taxpayers await the transformation.

C.A.R.P, BETTER KNOWN AS THE CA AIR AND RESOURCES BOARD, OVER ESTIMATED THE RECORDS BY 300percent!! this law if it passes will cost ca. 1.5million jobs!! THIS IS A SCAM, TO TURN CA. "GREEN", AT OUR COST!!! VOTE YES, ON 23....VOTE YES ON 23....VOTE YES, ON 23!!!! if not, we could use more foodstamps!!!!

a vote yes on 23, will save ca. 1.5 million jobs. these are enviormental EXTREEMIST, who dosent care if we live in a box, as long as we go green!!! northern ca.(UNDER BOXER) closed arcres of land, that was growing vegetables, by turning off water to the growers, cause of a fish, that was 2 inches long!!! as a result, 2,000 farmers are out of work, and our prices, went up!! vote yes, on 23!!!

Chaing held out against the current Governor during wage freezes, despite pressure from the voters and the gov. because he, rightly, believed the decree to lower wages was illegal and out of the governors power. Oh, how'd you like to go from making $90K/yr to $35k? Or in my parlance, from $45k/yr to $18k/yr?

The White House and the Democrats in Congress have been focusing on jobs. To focus on jobs, you have to fix the economy first, which the Democrats did.

Democrats have tried to focus on those who have been hurt from eight years of neglect. What does that mean?

1.)It means 16 different tax breaks and supports for small business owners, who were neglected by the Republicans for eight years.

2.)It means making student loans more affordable by cutting middleman subsidies, which had been growing for eight years.

3.)It took eight years to get us into this mess. And we have been crawling out of the hole ever since.

4.)It means passing a patient's bill of rights to control insurance costs, which have been growing for eight years.

5.) It means investing in solar and electric cars and alternative energy, which has been neglected for eight years.

6.) Then, it means curtailing deceptive banking practices, which have been getting worse and screwing consumers for eight years.

7.) And it means providing tax breaks for middle-class Americans, who have been squeezed for eight years.

8.) In 2010, corporate profits will be as high as they have been since 1997. We will see whether the cash that industry is sitting on will be used to invest and grow and create jobs here at home or whether it will pay bonuses to senior executives while shipping jobs overseas.

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